McILVEEN: Unfair to dig up ancient dirt about present-day politicians

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, flanked by his brother Doug, a Toronto city councillor, denied allegations that he smokes crack cocaine at a news conference last week.
(MICHELLE SIU / CP)

With fresh political scandals breaking almost daily, a Toronto newspaper could have found a better topic for an 18-month investigation than the history of loud, brash and politically incorrect politician Doug Ford.

Ford is the brother of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, the guy with the obnoxious personality.

Long before a U.S. website and the Toronto Star published stories about an elusive video that apparently shows Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine, it was hard to like Toronto’s mayor.

Rob Ford has, among other things, been accused of drunkenly groping a female member of a transportation lobby group at a social event and making ill-judged remarks about transgendered people, a fellow councillor of Italian descent and Chinese Canadians.

His older brother Doug, a councillor for Etobicoke, is a little less out there — but not much.

Over the weekend, the Globe & Mail, quoting 10 unnamed sources, revealed that the older Ford, a councillor for Etobicoke and a close confidant of the mayor, was allegedly a hash dealer more than 25 years ago.

Doug Ford has denied the allegations, emphasizing to the CBC his contributions to the community, including working to get kids off drugs.

“I have four young kids. I don’t condone drugs. I don’t condone drug use. I fight against it in our ward,” he told the CBC.

The Globe and Mail revealed Doug Ford’s alleged crimes as a young man, it said, because the Fords wield a lot of power and citizens of Toronto should know about the “moral record” of politicians.

“In most matters, public or private, character matters,” said the Globe and Mail, describing the 18-month investigation that led to the allegations.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of character and no fan of hashish dealers.

But people, including ones who become obnoxious politicians, make mistakes that they have the right to outgrow. It’s the timing of politicians’ mistakes that makes them of public interest — or largely irrelevant.

If somebody can actually get hold of that video and the guys in attendance and establish that Rob Ford has been smoking crack cocaine in the here and now, that’s relevant.

But I’m not so sure his brother Doug’s alleged hash dealing is.

What bothers me most about this story is that it is so old. In journalistic terms, it is arguably no longer news, but history.

And stories about what middle-aged politicians did or didn’t do when they were barely old enough to drink and vote can be sensational and, to my mind, unfair.

We’ve had similar cases, with revelations about less serious infractions — teen drunk driving, youthful drug addiction — here in Nova Scotia. Politicians involved have defused the situations by publicly acknowledging the problems.

Ford might want to follow the Nova Scotia examples, come clean and move on (although if I were him, and if the allegations are true, I’d check the statute of limitations for drug trafficking first).

Who, at 45 or 55, is the same person he or she was at 20? People change. Perspectives change. Values change. Character evolves. Why judge middle-aged people for what they did 25 or 30 years ago?

With the Ford family’s clout in Toronto and charges that Rob Ford needs to go into rehab, Doug Ford may not be the best example of a middle-aged politician unfairly slagged for the crimes or errors of his youth.

That the other two Ford siblings were allegedly involved in the 1980s drug culture and that the Etobicoke councillor allegedly dealt in hash from about age 15 until he turned 22 doesn’t help his case.

But politicians, like the rest of us, deserve to be judged by who they are and what they do right now, not by who they were and what they did when they were young, raw and inexperienced.

Even the annoying ones deserve to be forgiven for old mistakes, and to be allowed to move on.